I played 1.0 "board game style" (two-cores with four roughly equal decks), and really liked the game. I have a good friend who was trying to get me to play more competitively, and I never took the plunge, for various reasons. But, with 2.0 it seemed like a great time to jump into playing the game competitively. But, as I've started reading I've come across several things that have me scratching my head.

• I understand that it's very likely that 3 cores will be needed to play competitively (and am completely fine with it). What is the expectation around Chapter packs? Are those typically, one is enough? Or is it more likely that 2-3 will be needed for competitive play?
• What is "splashing"? I saw this in another thread and I couldn't quite parse what it meant in context (I'm very new to the lingo of card games). Here's the thread where I saw it: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/175300-cant-wait-to-buy-27-core-sets-so-amped/?p=1620228
  

  ... and the factions are a very important constraint in the deckbuilding (no splashing, limited alliance possibilities, very few neutral cards, some cards are exclusive to a faction), ...

Thanks so much. Very excited for this game.

1. We don't know for sure, but all of the other LCGs (including v1) give a full playset of cards (3 copies) in each pack. So, a 60 card pack will actually be 3 copies each of 20 unique cards. It would be very surprising if this practice was somehow different for v2.

2. "Splashing" is a term people use for putting a few power cards from other factions into a deck. So, for example, if you are playing a Stark deck and there is 1 Lannister card and 2 Baratheon cards that go really well with what your deck does, you'd "splash" the extra factions/colors into your deck. In v1, you could "splash" freely - meaning that you could play just about any card in any deck (just with a cost-to-play penalty). As the card pool got bigger, this kind of deck building freedom actually became a problem for a lot of people because they would literally think through whether or not every card in the game was a good fit for the deck. The word is that v2 doesn't allow any mixing of factions (so, only cards from your chosen faction and neutrals in a deck) outside of specific, narrowly defined alliances. If true, this is likely to be a good thing. It might seem like it limits the deck possibilities (which technically it does, I suppose), but sometimes providing limits encourages greater creativity within those limits than you would see without them. In practice, we have seen the "open splashing" deck building channel people toward very specific combos and uses. People tend not to stray too far from things that have already been proven useful and efficient. But with more restrictive limits, people are more likely to explore everything they can do within those limits, leading to a greater practical variety of playable decks.

@1: If nothing changes in 2E, the Chapter Packs will already include 3 copies of each new card.

Edit: ktom beat me to it, but there you go.

Thanks for the responses!

The word is that v2 doesn't allow any mixing of factions (so, only cards from your chosen faction and neutrals in a deck) outside of specific, narrowly defined alliances. If true, this is likely to be a good thing. It might seem like it limits the deck possibilities (which technically it does, I suppose), but sometimes providing limits encourages greater creativity within those limits than you would see without them. In practice, we have seen the "open splashing" deck building channel people toward very specific combos and uses.

Mark Rosewater (the lead designer of Magic ) has frequently talked about the need for colors (or factions in this case) to have weaknesses. Stark has little intrigue defense. Lannister has little military defense. The Night's Watch's abilities that we've seen so far are almost entirely on the defensive side (not always a good thing). Other factions can shore up weaknesses in your chosen faction, at a cost. In 1.0, the cost was 2 gold; here, it's simply not possible to include off-color cards unless you are running the support faction's Banner agenda.

In short, the game needs to simultaneously offer both: a drawback to running out-of-faction support, and inertia pulling you towards doing so. It's a difficult balance, but IMO Fantasy Flight's LCGs have generally done a good job dividing strengths and tools across the game's various factions/affiliations/identities.

Stark:

Standing, Military, character removal

Lannister:

Ambush, Intrigue, gold advantage

The Night's Watch:

Defensive abilities, character removal (by stealing), challenge removal

Frankly I think it will be better just from a cognitive load perspective. Twelve full cycles, six deluxes...I couldn't keep my head in the game for 1st ed. Being able to keep track of one faction at a time, with half a deluxe* and at most 7 cycles of cards is a lot less of a headache.

*I think it's a strong bet we'll see only 4 Deluxes, 2 factions per box, following the trend set by Netrunner, Star Wars, and (AFAIK) Conquest.

I think it's a strong bet we'll see only 4 Deluxes, 2 factions per box, following the trend set by Netrunner, Star Wars, and (AFAIK) Conquest.

The first deluxe in Conquest will introduce a new faction (Tyranids). And there is another faction to be introduced later (Necrons), presumably in another dedicated deluxe. So Conquest is not following that model (but AGoT 2nd Ed still might).

my spidey sense tells me the vanilla factions will be 2 per box, still.

my spidey sense tells me the vanilla factions will be 2 per box, still.

Likely, though there are 7 core factions in Conquest (9 once we have Tyranid and Necron), so if they do go double faction deluxes it won't work out as neatly as AGOT 2E. Didn't stop Netrunner, which also has 7 factions, though as an assymetric game it's kind of important to boost two factions at once. Conquest could do a Human box (Space Marines and Astra Militarum), an Eldar box (Eldar and Dark Eldar), a Xenos box (Ork and Tau), and then maybe a Chaos box with some extra support for Tyranid and Necron, or some micro factions like they're doing in Netrunner (Adepta Sororitas maybe).

Didn't stop Netrunner, which also has 7 factions, though as an assymetric game it's kind of important to boost two factions at once.

This is a really good point, not just about Netrunner, but about Star Wars, too (the other LCG with "two faction expansions"). Aren't the 2 factions in the expansion box always on opposite sides of the game (i.e., dark and light for SW, corp and runner for A:NR)? That's not something that happens in Conquest (which has had no deluxe boxes yet - and the only one announced highlights a single faction, although as the introduction of that faction, it can hardly be considered the trend-setter), or in AGoT.

I'm not saying future deluxe expansions (that don't introduce new factions) for Conquest or AGoT won't be "two faction" products. I'm only saying that SW and A:NR boxes might not be definitive proof of it since there are game mechanic reasons for building two faction expansions for those games.

I can see some Minifactions.. (Wildlings, Tullys, Brotherhood etc.)

But in general i think there will be 2 Faction deluxe Expansions, maybe with a Minifaction included with the 7th Faction

I can see some Minifactions.. (Wildlings, Tullys, Brotherhood etc.)

But in general i think there will be 2 Faction deluxe Expansions, maybe with a Minifaction included with the 7th Faction

No need for that, there are 8 factions in AGOT 2E, so they should work out pretty well. If I had to guess the pairings: Stark and Night's Watch (for obvious reasons), Targaryen and Baratheon (the two royal houses), Lannister and Tyrell (the two manipulative, rich houses), and Greyjoy and Martell (the expansion could be A Feast for Crows themed).

Why strengthen a single 'side' each time? Would it not make more sense to do something like:

Stark and Lannister

Targaryen and Martell

Tyrell and Night's Watch

Greyjoy and Baratheon

My argument in favor of a limited number of Deluxe sets is just to limit the number of SKUs that retailers have to stock and new players have to buy into. Three Core sets and eight Deluxes is a $360 MSRP. Three Cores and four Deluxes is $240.

But, then I went back to the graphics they made for the rotation announcement, and they said that the card pool would likely max out at about 1500 cards when the 7th chapter pack cycle is complete.

1500 - 240 (Core) = 1260

1260 - 840 (7 CPs) = 420 remaining for deluxes.
420 / 55 = 7.36

So, maybe they will do 8 deluxes for Thrones, or maybe they're basing it off Conquest getting 7 deluxes because that game's loyalty wheel is weird.

What do I know?

All certainly possible but I'm kind of hoping they DON'T do that.

Would rather have each deluxe splash a little of all 8 factions with a theme (either time-period, story or mechanic-driven) to tie them all together. LotR style, but obviously with a lot more cards than those expansion (no encounter cards needed).

That would also be a decent way of progressing the time-period of the game--each deluxe we take a step forward in the narrative.

Conquest was designed from the ground up for rotation and I suspect GoT2e is as well. Conquest has had every available faction except neutral be represented in every pack and in its first expansion. Net runner also splashes every faction in most of its releases (but not all).

I expect that each pack will have something for each faction and the expansions will focus on two or more factions with a little something for every faction.

If I may, I'd like to use the opportunity and kidnap this topic for a short question: I can't find any info on the rotation cycles for the different LCGs. Is there a place where they are all available? Is there a chart somewhere?

If I may, I'd like to use the opportunity and kidnap this topic for a short question: I can't find any info on the rotation cycles for the different LCGs. Is there a place where they are all available? Is there a chart somewhere?

I think this is what you're looking for: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2014/11/5/a-new-stage-of-growth/

Yikes! When I was searching through the old news for this I was looking much farther back. Didn't realise the announcements were so recently. I thought they somehow didn't get converted to the new site.

Thank you very much!!!

I figure I will add another "New Player" question to this mix....

How big are decks usually, or expected to be, when going about building custom decks?

I get the limit on plot cards and individual cards, plus the limit on mixing factions, will mean it won't get too nuts, but reading in the rules that there is no upper limit on how big a deck can be makes me wonder.

No real benefit in going over 60 cards. Suppose you've chosen your 60 most ideal cards. Adding any more to that is just going to reduce the chances that you draw your ideal cards. For any deck over 60, you should be able to find a card in the deck that just doesn't work as well as other cards already in the deck. Taking it out makes the deck stronger.

Another new player, so I'll join in the thread here.

1) How do the agendas work? It looks from the base game that each faction card has one agenda on the other side. Does that mean each faction can only splash 1 other specific faction (i.e. Night's Watch can only splash Stark)?

2) Let's say you only play 2 or 3 houses. How many of the expansions do you need to buy? Are the cards evenly spread or specific to certain packs?

3) Is there any chance you can be competitive with a single core if you are playing against people that have 2 or 3 cores?

4) Do you typically always include 3 copies of each card, or is it common to run only 1 or 2 copies of some cards?

1. Generally speaking, Agendas are cards you attach to a House card that modify your faction by conferring a benefit (usually at the price of an additional drawback) on your deck for the entire game. We know that there is a "Banner" agenda for each faction that allows you the benefit of including non-loyal cards from that faction in your deck. Since normally, you cannot include any cards from another faction in your deck, that can be quite a benefit. The drawback is that you have to include no fewer than 12 non-loyal cards from that faction (so, less of a "splash" and more of a "drench").

2. Since none have been released, there is no way to know the answer to this question. Cards are unlikely to be spread evenly throughout the various packs though - although there will probably be a roughly equal number of cards for each faction across the a complete cycle. This is a benefit to an LCG, though. With fixed packs, you can find out what cards are in a particular pack before buying it. If there aren't any good cards for your factions, don't buy it.

3. Depends on what you mean by "competitive." Probably not, though. Think about it: People with 2-3 copies of the Core are going to be able to focus their decks by replacing mediocre cards in the Core deck with really good cards. Not only do they have more good cards in the deck, they are more likely to draw them. With the ability to double up on the good cards and leave out the not so good ones - as well as have multiple copies of plots so as to take advantage of the "2 copies of a plot of your choice in your 7-card deck" - people with multiple Cores will have an advantage. That doesn't mean they are ensured victory, but it's kind of like asking if a moped can race against a motorcycle.

4. Depends on the card, the deck, and the player. People tend to run at least 2 copies of key cards and strong effect, and only one copy of supporting cards that are nice when you get them, but not the sort of thing the deck revolves around.

Just to clarify on #1, the Faction card has the faction on the front, and "Banner of [that faction]" on the back. So if you're running Night's Watch, you have Banner of the Lion, of the Wolf, and Stag, Rose, Sun, Kraken, and Dragon to choose from--the back sides of all the *other* faction cards.

As this seems to be the "ask a small question thread", I've another one:

Are you allowed to play for example Stark vs. Stark? If not, what if you play Tyrell vs. Lannister and each use their Agenda with Starks? I didn't find anything about this in the rules, but I'm no native speaker, so maybe I've just overlooked some stuff. Also, if you're able to play against your own fraction, how are unique cards handled?

These may seem like some real dumb questions, but I'm new to LCGs in general (as far as FFG is concerned at least). Really looking forward to 2.0 though!